Don't Do That

Let the wild rumpus start.

From Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak

Don't Do That

It was bring-your-own if you wanted anything

hard, so I brought Johnnie Walker Red

along with some resentment I’d held in

for a few weeks, which was not helped

by the sight of little nameless things

pierced with toothpicks on the tables,

or by talk that promised to be nothing

if not small. But I’d consented to come,

and I knew what part of the house

their animals would be sequestered,

whose company I loved. What else can I say,

except that old retainer of slights and wrongs,

that bad boy I hadn’t quite outgrown—

I’d brought him along, too. I was out

to cultivate a mood. My hosts greeted me,

but did not ask about my soul, which was when

I was invited by Johnnie Walker Red

to find the right kind of glass, and pour.

I toasted the air. I said hello to the wall,

then walked past a group of women

dressed to be seen, undressing them

one by one, and went up the stairs to where

the Rottweilers were, Rosie and Tom,

and got down with them on all fours.

They licked the face I offered them,

and I proceeded to slick back my hair

with their saliva, and before long

I felt like a wild thing, ready to mess up

the party, scarf the hors d’oeuvres.

But the dogs said, No, don’t do that,

calm down, after a while they open the door

and let you out, they pet your head, and everything

you might have held against them is gone,

and you’re good friends again. Stay, they said.

This poem by Stephen Dunn was found in The New Yorker, June 8, 2009.